


Carnival

by stitchcasual



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Carnival AU, Cotton Candy, Fluff, M/M, bethany is incredible, fenris is incredibly patient, hawke is a failboat, knife toss, lots of fluff, strength test
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11749977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: Hawke and Fenris have been working at the same carnival for the last three summers and barely spoken to each other. But hell if Hawke is letting this one pass him by!





	Carnival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiny_owlbear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_owlbear/gifts).



> Written for a follower giveaway on my [tumblr](http://stitchcasual.tumblr.com), for the request of scmooches, "cotton candy levels of fluff," and maybe an au

“You know, you’re not the only person who gets sad when summer ends,” Bethany says, popping her gum as she leans against the railing at the knife toss. “It’s just, the rest of us have real things to be sad about, like school starting and homework.” Her brother, mercifully prevented from wearing one of his ridiculous tank tops by the carnival’s dress code (Kirkwall Karnival Krew t-shirts only), places a hand over his heart, pouting with the full force of his bottom lip, before he has to turn to the guest in line to take their tickets and hand over the three mostly blunted blades.

“Hit the target, get a prize!” he says, spreading his arms wide and stepping back. He’d learned early on in his summers at the carnival that you had to give people a little bit of space or it was possible to get mildly stabbed by a too-enthusiastic guest with poor aim. He had also learned that the carnival has a policy of “it’s not our fault if you get injured being stupid” as he took a weekend off to recover.

“I have real things to be sad about!” Hawke protests, pointing a finger at his sister after the guest fails to hit the target and walks away with the tiny consolation prize. “He’s a real thing!” He points across the way to the strength test, where a small, wiry man is twirling the giant,  _ heavy _ hammer to try and lure people in. “Very, very real…” 

Bethany rolls her eyes and gives Hawke a few moments of staring before she snaps her fingers to get his attention and gestures to her chin. “You’ve, uh, got a bit of drool there.”

Hawke’s eyes widen and his hand wipes at his mouth before he glares at her. “Ha ha, very funny.”

Bethany smiles sweetly and blows a bubble at him. “You’re lucky it’s me here today and not Carver. He’d give you a much worse time.” Which is true enough, so Hawke thanks what lucky stars he  _ does _ have and exchanges tickets for blades yet again. 

The carnival day is winding down, perhaps only half an hour left until the gates close and the attractions are shut down. There are already barely any people left on the grounds, and those who are still there generally try and get one last ride in on the ferris wheel or the tarantula before they’re forced out. Hawke’s personal favorite is the tiny little roller coaster they set up that winds up and over the parking lot and all around the outside of the park. It’s not a very thrilling ride, but he likes it all the same. On the days Bethany comes to give him a ride home, they can usually persuade the operator, an adorable little sprite named Merrill, to let them have a go on it before they all go home. Bethany adores it nearly as much as Hawke does. Carver, on the other hand, seems to hate when Hawke drags him on the roller coaster, turning red, then white, and falling suddenly mute as they approach Merrill’s station. It’s like they’re not even related.

When that guest leaves, Hawke props his hip on the railing next to Bethany and folds his arms, and they both look over to the strength test where the attendant of Hawke’s interest is puttering about, having given up on the twirling. Too bad. It was a good show. His white hair glows in the fading light, or so it seems to Hawke, and as he runs a hand through it, it shimmers.

Hawke leans against Bethany and sighs deeply.

“You have it bad, bro,” Bethany says, bumping her shoulder into his. Hawke groans. “Do you even know his name?”

“Of course I do! Can’t work at the same carnival as someone for three summers and not learn their name.” Hawke coughs and looks to the side. “Don’t know much else about him though…”

“What?!” Bethany slaps his arm. “Don’t you talk to him?”

“Oh sure,” Hawke says breezily, “we say hi and bye every day.”

Bethany hits him again. “You’re hopeless.”

“Yeah, probably.”

With a knowing look, Bethany leaves him to wander around the carnival as it closes down, get some of the last food from the vendors, and probably, if Hawke knows his sister at all, head to Merrill’s roller coaster to wait for him to finish cleaning up his station and join her. He smiles as he resets all the targets and locks up the knives in the storage box underneath the counter. As he rounds the end of his booth to head toward the roller coaster, he catches the eye of the strength-test-guy and raises a hand.

“Night!” he calls, grinning broadly. Fenris, because Hawke  _ does _ indeed know his name, even if he knows next to nothing else, mirrors Hawke’s gesture, a much smaller smile on his lips, though it does look genuine.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Totally.” Hawke finger guns and winks...and facepalms as soon as Fenris turns away, dark eyebrows high on his forehead. “Oh god...why did I do that? Oh no…” He watches Fenris walk for the exit through his fingers, and only after Fenris has gone through the turnstiles does he drop his hands, throw his head back, and groan mightily. He meets Bethany at the roller coaster and gives Merrill a warm hug before he and Bethany board the forwardmost cart and stick their hands up in the air, even before the train has started moving.

When the ride ends, they’re both breathless and laughing, and Hawke forgets about the whole finger guns incident until the two of them are sliding through the turnstiles themselves. He doesn’t realize he’s frowning until Bethany pokes his cheek when they reach the family car, and then he spills the whole story, humiliating finger guns and all, patiently waiting until Bethany has caught her breath after doubling over with laughter against the driver’s side door.

“Well, you’re not helpful,” he grumbles, opening his door. Bethany gets in and starts the engine, leaning over to pat his hand before pulling out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...really? You did that? Finger guns.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “You’re a disaster.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The next day at the carnival, he tries to make up for his idiocy the other night so he waves and calls out a cheerful good morning before Fenris even looks up from his coffee cup on his way over to his station. Hawke’s smile, so carefully crafted, starts to fall when Fenris raises his eyes, wide and dark-ringed, and simply stares across the walkway at him. Hawke takes a small step backward and lifts his hands in apology, ducking his head a little.

“Right, not until after coffee, got it. Sorry!” He can see Fenris grunt and take a long pull from his cup as he turns to pick up the giant hammer one-handed and set the rest of his station up. Hawke regretfully does the same, sans giant hammer and amazing display of strength. They have an hour until the carnival opens in late morning and most of that time Hawke spends watching Fenris drink his coffee. (It’s not like the knife toss takes any great length of time to set up, and after three years, Hawke has it down to an art.) Fenris goes through the large cup he brought with him, then wanders off and comes back with another quite large cup provided by one of the food vendor stalls. Hawke isn’t sure they even offer that size to guests and wonders if it’s an employees-only kind of thing. He doesn’t drink coffee himself, except in truly dire circumstances, so he hasn’t yet had cause to find out himself. Coffee only...enhances his natural exuberance, and sometimes that’s just not a thing that anyone needs.

He tries again when someone comes to relieve him for a short break, waving his hand toward Fenris and smiling as he passes the strength test. Fenris raises an eyebrow and two fingers at Hawke before turning his attention back to the guest currently in possession of the giant hammer. Better than nothing! And definitely better than earlier this morning. He might be getting somewhere here...

When he gets back to his booth, Fenris is handing off the giant hammer to his relief person and stepping out of the small ring that encloses his space. His eyes catch Hawke’s when he looks up, and he nods his head just slightly as he walks by on his way out of the carnival. Two Moments in twenty minutes! Hawke spins around in a little circle and shakes his arms and hips in some approximation of a happy dance until his next guest comes up. Even then he doesn’t truly stop the dance until he can see Fenris approaching and really, the dance only migrates up to his brain where his gray matter cuts a rug for the rest of the afternoon. 

It is rather unfortunate that he and Fenris can’t be relieved for breaks at the same time, but at least Fenris continues acknowledging Hawke when he waves every time he heads out of his booth, which is a total of two more times that day, once for lunch and once for his afternoon break. Fenris does begin to look a little bemused at all the attention though, his eyebrows and lips twitching when he drops his gaze back to whatever he was doing before Hawke distracted him.

Bethany, when she arrives to pick him up, is positive about the news but not quite as excited about it all as Hawke is. 

“You realize you just did more of the same thing you’ve been doing, right?” she asks, taking the knives he hands her. Sometimes if the evening is particularly dead, he’ll let her take a shot without paying for it, though he refuses to part with any of the prizes if she wins until she comes back with actual carnival tickets. Sundays are usually fairly quiet when it gets on toward evening, most people heading home to start preparing for the week ahead. The roller coaster doesn’t clatter overhead as often, and he can’t hear as many screams from the Terror Tower, their ride that slowly chugs a cart of people high in the sky only to hold them there for a few seconds and drop them back down to the ground. Where the excitement in that is, Hawke does not know.

“More is good,” he protests, standing back. Bethany grins and mimes throwing a knife sideways at him. Hawke glares at her and definitely does not flinch. Not even a little. Nope. He watches his little sister heft the knives, twirling one and catching it by the hilt before flipping it over to grab the point, and he has to wonder exactly who it is who’s been giving his sister knife handling lessons because it sure as hell isn’t him. With a wink, Bethany flicks the knife in her hand, embedding the point into the tallest, farthest target he has set up.

“Bela!” Hawke yells. Bethany laughs and tosses the other two knives in quick succession, hitting a different target each time. “We are going to have words…” He grumbles all the way to the other end of the booth where he collects the knives and resets the targets. His sister doesn’t stop laughing until he’s rejoined her at the counter, placed the knives on the other end from her, and huffed for a good two minutes. Then she flings her arms around him as best she can, kisses his cheek, and says, “I’m gonna go hang out with Merrill.”

He shoos her away, mock mad, though secretly, very secretly, he’s a little proud. She’ll give him a run for his money here soon enough if she keeps it up. He and Bela, one of Bethany’s college friends, are already of a level in terms of throwing; at least, they were the last time he challenged her to a duel. And if she’s truly giving pointers to Bethany, and she’s the only one he can think of to do so, then it’s really only a matter of time. Bethany’s one smart kid. Good thing too, or sending her through college would have been a real financial nightmare. As it stands though, she’s coasting on scholarships, proving she really is the best of the Hawke siblings.

Carver did a few years at a trade school instead of finishing high school and works a good union job now. Hawke’s incredibly proud of him too, though he doesn’t get as many opportunities to tell him that with the way they tend to butt heads whenever they talk for any significant length of time. The two of them are just kind of built to work, Hawke figures, and will just hold down whatever jobs they can until they retire. But Bethany, Bethany will go on to do wonderful things with her fancy college education, becoming rich and famous (or so Hawke believes). He looks forward to the day he’s able to quit working and be a stay-at-home brother. That’s a thing, right?

With ten minutes to close and not a guest in sight, Hawke gives up looking carnival-professional and starts juggling the knives. He was able to do this before joining the carnival, and he’s pretty sure his demonstration of it was the reason they hired him in the first place but he can’t say for sure. He walks the length and breadth of his booth, rectangles, circles, figure-eights, alternating over and underhand tosses, in front of and behind his back. He gets so caught up with what he’s doing, enjoying the meditative feel of the juggling, that he doesn’t notice someone approaching until a throat clears behind him and he nearly drops one of the knives.

“That’s...impressive.” Fenris’s low voice thrills through Hawke, and what’s really most impressive is that Hawke manages to not only catch the last knife he had in the air but not drop the rest of them all while turning around to grin and bow. His heart thuds in his chest, but he passes it off with a flourish, setting the knives down onto the counter and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks. It’s the one thing I can actually do well.” 

“I’m sure there are other things.” 

Somehow the very, very green eyes belonging to Fenris lock on to Hawke’s kind of muddy brown ones and time seems to stop. It’s a cliche and he knows it, but Hawke can’t help how he feels, which is also somewhat electrified and paralyzed. Finally Fenris looks away and the spell is broken. Hawke coughs and scratches his nose, glancing over at the knives on the counter before sweeping them into the storage box and shutting it.

Now that the initial moment is over, Hawke is aware of a general, low-level anxiety humming through his body. And with the knives stowed and the targets taken care of earlier, there’s nothing to do with his hands. Everything feels wrong: Should he fold them in front of him or behind his back? Should he gesture somehow, though that would require words too? Should he put them in his pockets? Except he just did that, can he do that again in such a short period of time? Would that be weird?

Fenris clears his throat, his own hands hanging by his thumbs out of his front pockets (could Hawke do that too or would it be too creepy?), and jerks his head toward the exit. “I should…”

“Me too!” Hawke jumps on the chance for just a little more interaction with Fenris and waves both his arms in the direction of the turnstiles. He flops them back to his sides when he realizes how much he’s flailing and scoots around the end of his booth so that he and Fenris both are on the outside. Fenris’s eyebrow lowers from the small height it had been raised to, and he gives Hawke a slight smile.

“Where did you learn to juggle like that?” he asks as they push through the turnstiles. Hawke squints his eyes, staring up at the sky as he thinks.

“I don’t really remember. Feels like something I’ve been doing my whole life. I know my dad liked it, cheered him up when…” Hawke coughs and drops his eyes to look at his feet as he rubs the toe of one shoe into the ground. “Anyway, mom never approved as much, not a marketable life skill or whatever, but I think I’m doing OK for myself.” He crosses his arms, feeling a little defensive even though Fenris has given him no reason to think he might disapprove of Hawke’s skill set, such as it is.

“But what about you? Have you always been able to swing a hammer like that?”

Fenris raises an eyebrow at him in a look at is at once insinuating and concealing. “More or less,” he says. They stand in silence for a while until Hawke suddenly screams “Bethany!” and jumps the stile to dash back into the carnival, leaving Fenris blinking behind him.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Hawke works the intervening week at Varric’s bar, on day shifts during the summer instead of his regular closing shifts so his body doesn’t have to try and hop from nights to days while he’s at the carnival. He’ll take a few days off once the carnival closes to reset his schedule and then it’s back to his normal vampiric habits. And not seeing Fenris. Woo. By the time Friday rolls around again, a half day at the carnival, Hawke is pretty strung out. 

He barely acknowledges Fenris, already standing at his station when Hawke arrives, and only does the bare minimum of prep work before leaving his booth to head down to the vendor that sells the giant cups of coffee. He’s contemplating, trying to decide if he should get the huge cup or a more regular-sized one, when a throat clears behind him.

“Are you alright?” 

Fenris looks up at him, green eyes widened slightly, face soft in the early afternoon sun glare.

“Oh, yeah, totally. Why wouldn’t I be?”

A dark eyebrow rises. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you with coffee since I started working here.”

It’s been three times. Including this one, though he doesn’t technically have the coffee yet. The first time was in Fenris’s first year after a big fight with Carver the night before which had ended with Carver storming out of the house and not coming back. Hawke had been up the entire night combing Kirkwall for him. He’d found Carver outside the home office for his new job at Templar Construction and they’d talked it out until the sun rose then walked home together. The second time had been the Saturday after their mother died. Hawke had spent so much of that week comforting his siblings, cooking meals, planning a funeral, and receiving well meaning visitors that by the time his shift rolled around that weekend, he was drained and not at all feeling like smiling at much of anyone, let alone working. 

“You...were counting?”

Fenris suddenly looks away, sidestepping around Hawke to gesture at the person behind the food counter. “It is easy to count such small numbers,” he says, as if that’s an answer. When Hawke turns around, Fenris has two giant cups of coffee, one of them extended toward him.

“I could kiss you,” Hawke says without thinking, reaching for the cup with both hands.

“You could.” Fenris’s voice is so soft that Hawke nearly doesn’t catch it, and he pauses with his hands outstretched toward the coffee for a minute before stepping forward into the space between them. With great care, Hawke removes one cup from Fenris’s hands, holding it out to the side so it isn’t in the way as he leans down, intending to just kiss one of Fenris’s cheeks in what could hopefully still be considered a friendly manner if it turns out Fenris isn’t really interested in him. 

But Fenris moves, twisting his head so that Hawke’s lips land on his mouth rather than his cheek. It pulls a surprised little noise from Hawke and a low little moan from Fenris, but neither of them break away. They stay like that, lips touching, bodies apart, a small breeze rustling hair and cooling coffee, until they both step back at the same moment as if by an unspoken accord. Hawke’s mouth is open, and his tongue darts out to taste his upper lip, lingering there when he feels Fenris’s eyes watching, staring. He blushes and ducks his head but still he feels Fenris’s regard.

Unsure how to act now, Hawke reaches for his wallet but a hand on his arm stops him. Fenris shakes his head when Hawke looks up at him, and they walk back to their booths in a silence punctuated only by the sounds of sipping coffee. Hawke opens his mouth to say something when they part ways but can’t figure out what it should be, so he closes it again and simply raises his coffee cup in a salute before he installs himself behind his counter. 

The memory of the kiss lingers, and Hawke finds his eyes drawn over to Fenris and his hammer more often than usual. And, more often than not, it turns out Fenris is looking over at him too. The first few times Hawke bites his lip and averts his eyes, but as the afternoon wears into evening he lets himself be bolder, holding Fenris’s gaze for as long as possible until a guest interrupts either one of them. 

Fridays are later days, the carnival going far into the evening to accommodate all the people who come after work. It’s nearing 11pm when Hawke finishes with his closing duties. Bethany is waiting in the car, probably napping, and Hawke shoves a fist into his mouth to stop a yawn as he heads for the exit. Fenris falls in next to him, looking as tired as Hawke feels, and Hawke tries to smile at him but it comes off just looking awkward around his hand with his eyes squinting almost closed.

In the parking lot, Hawke gestures at the Hawke family car but doesn’t make a move toward it. Fenris points over to the employee lot a little farther away but likewise stays put, and then they stare at each other in the dim light from the parking lot lamps.

“Thanks again. For the coffee. It was great.”

Fenris snorts softly. “Their coffee is shit. But it’s caffeinated.”

“I was trying to be nice,” Hawke grumbles and Fenris laughs, his face lighting up brighter than the streetlamps. Hawke smiles at him and scuffs one foot against the pavement, suddenly bashful. “ _ You _ were great, though.”

“Is that so?” 

Hawke isn’t sure if it’s his imagination or a trick of the light or if Fenris does actually move a little toward him. He’d like to think it’s the latter. He scratches the back of his head and shrugs, trying for a cavalier tone when he speaks that he isn’t sure he quite pulls off.

“Yeah, but I think it’d be good to try again. For...science? You know, make sure it wasn’t an accident or anyth—”

He’s interrupted by lips, the best kind of interruption, and this time it’s him who moans. Fenris’s lips are soft under his, opening slightly to allow the meeting of tentative tongues, and when Hawke nips at Fenris’s bottom lip, Fenris groans. This time it’s definitely no trick of the light as Fenris moves closer and presses his body against Hawke’s, rising up onto his tiptoes. Hawke wraps an arm around Fenris’s waist, holding him securely to take some of the pressure off his feet.

“I don’t even know you,” Hawke gasps, pulling away even as Fenris kisses at the creases of his lips.

“My name is Fenris. I work at the carnival.” Fenris smiles at him, a little lopsided, and Hawke huffs a laugh.

“Yes, thanks for that.” 

Anything else he might want to say is forgotten as Fenris coaxes him back into the kiss, and he loses a few more moments in this place they’ve made together. Fenris is warm and solid against him, and Hawke would gladly stay here until the sun rose the next day and it was time to go back to work. But just as he’s placed his other hand on Fenris’s hip, stroking his fingers in place, a wolf whistle sounds from nearby and a voice calls out.

“Get ‘em, tiger!”

Fenris startles out of Hawke’s arms, looking around with wild eyes until he spots Bela hanging out of the passenger side window of the Hawke family car. Very quietly he bids Hawke goodnight and beats a hasty retreat to his own car. Hawke turns slowly on his heel, glaring daggers at Bela who slips back into the car, cackling like mad, and rolls the window up before he can get there.

He doesn’t have a chance to do more than throw an apologetic glance toward Fenris when he gets to work on Saturday, late and rushing to set everything up. He’s not sure how else he can indicate that he’s sorry for his friend and can’t (can) believe that Bela did that and that he would really have liked to continue kissing Fenris. At least Fenris gives him a small smile and a wave when he heads off to his first break, so that’s something. Bela didn’t completely scare him off. Unfortunately, Carver picks him up from work that evening, so Hawke barely has time to wave again at Fenris before his younger brother stalks off though the deepening gloom with threats to leave Hawke behind if he doesn’t catch up. It’s the same treatment on Sunday, and Hawke would suspect foul play on Bethany’s part if she weren’t so obviously distraught for him that he hasn’t been able to kiss Fenris again since Bela’s interruption.

As the final weekend of the carnival looms, Hawke grows ever more anxious. He breaks a couple glasses at the bar during the day, and though Varric assures him that it’s OK and that they needed a change in stemware anyway, it doesn’t help much. Nothing does until Friday morning when Bethany pulls him aside before he starts getting ready for work.

“What is it you’re looking for here, anyway? What do you hope to walk away with this year that you didn’t last year?”

Hawke shrugs and shoves his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants. “I just want to know where he goes after this.”

“Oh, brother, he goes back to real life, just like you do.”

“Yeah but where? Is he a waiter? A banker? An international spy? Does he even like the Fast and Furious movies??”

Bethany takes his face in both her hands and looks up into his eyes. “Brother.  _ Just ask him. _ There will be time enough for all your other questions later, but all you really need to ask him before this weekend is over is this: can I get your phone number? OK?”

Hawke exhales and folds his sister up into a very tight hug. “OK.”

He can’t manage anything Friday other than hellos, goodbyes, and smiles in between, but Saturday…

Somehow on Saturday, he and Fenris get relieved for lunch at the same time. Fenris jogs over and gestures toward the food vendors with a questioning look. Though he technically has a lunch waiting for him in the break room, Hawke nods and walks with Fenris to peruse the offerings. He doesn’t usually eat the carnival food, just to save money, even though he gets a discount, but what the hell, it’s the last weekend of the summer and he won’t get many more chances to spend time with Fenris, especially if he doesn’t step up and say something. But instead he just follows Fenris around the carnival after purchasing himself a giant turkey leg, making vague small talk until it’s time to head back to their stations.

That night Hawke finishes closing down his station in record time and books it over to the food vendor stalls, begging and pleading and forking over the only cash he has left on his person. He runs back to the strength test as Fenris finishes his own closing ritual and presents the stick of spun sugar with wide eyes and an anxious heart. Fenris blinks at him, blinks at the cotton candy, and then a slow smile spreads across his face. Hawke breathes again.

They walk toward the exit slowly, talking in low voices about the day, and working at the cotton candy. Hawke pulls a piece off and absently offers it to Fenris who glances sidelong at him before wrapping his lips around the tips of Hawke’s fingers and licking at them to get the sugar off. A chill having absolutely nothing to do with the warm late summer evening zigzags its way up Hawke’s spine, and he stares at his fingers as Fenris lets them go, not even trying to walk anymore. A piece of cotton candy floats into his vision. Fenris’s smile is warm in the darkness of the empty carnival, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. Hawke swallows hard before leaning forward to take Fenris’s fingers, and the cotton candy, into his mouth, choking on a moan as his eyes flutter closed. Finally, reluctantly, he releases Fenris, reflexively licking his lips to fill the empty space.

“So, uh, does this mean I can get your phone number?”

Fenris laughs and pulls Hawke down to meet him in a sugar-sweet kiss, tiny crystals sliding between their lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
